1. Human Interaction, Social Protocols
and Collaborative Applications
(http://agws.dit.upm.es/Isabel/other/)
Prof. Juan Quemada
<jquemada@dit.upm.es>
UPM - Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome

2. Social Intelligence*
Humans are fundamentally social beings
“We are wired to connect with others”
We have a natural disposition to
Empathy, cooperation, group work, altruism
How does our social brain works on the
Internet?
*”Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, by Daniel Goleman
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 2

3. The last 50 cms to the user
Can we really connect with others over the
Internet?
And feel that there is somebody at the other side
What is missing in
the last 50 cms to the user?
Technology, protocols, applications, etc.
Or a sense of social linkage & empathy?
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 3

4. Social Protocols (other definitions)
Standards of polite behaviour (CSCW)
Netiquette:
Conventions for correct use of Internet Technology
Norms that enable to express social capabilities
Including trust relationships
XFN (Friend of a Friend) based Web annotations
for incremental creation of social networks
……
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 4

5. Social Protocols (this view)
Social protocols are part of our “Social Intelligence”
Enabling us to create successful groups and societies
Social protocols are
Explicit representations of
Interaction rules used in human groups and societies
Social protocols map easily into our mental models of group
interaction
Triggering behavioural and cognitive human processes
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 5

6. The Collaborative Floor
Collaboration on the Internet
traditionally empasizes (floor) control rights
We must rethink the floor (PC, PDA, Mobile, ..)
as a place for human interaction
As humans interact using Social protocols
let’s do “Social Protocol Based Design”
Design
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 6

7. The Isabel Application
Isabel development started in 1993
For supporting distributed realisation of ABC93-6
RACE Advanced Broadband Communication Summer Schools
Goal:
Interaction across remote auditoriums similar to co-located
Isabel develops a novel context aware service idea, where
Interactions are context dependent
Floor control manages context and interaction at diferent levels
Isabel services were developed using
Social Protocol Based Design
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 7

8. ABC´96
Iceland
Ottawa Oslo
Stockolm
Groningen
Berlin
Paris Brussels
Basel U.Linz
Geneva
Aveiro Turin
Madrid Athens
Naples
- 4 day event in June 1996 with ~20 remote sites
- Terrestrial and satellite ATM 6Mbit/s connections
- Sites with speakers: Aveiro, Berlin, Brussels, Madrid, Naples
- Other Sites: Athens, Barcelona, Bern, Den Haag, Linz,
Oslo, Ottawa, Paris, Rejkiavik, Rome, Turin, ...
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome

9. Defining Isabel services (Step 1)
Identification of the different types of interactions
Called Interaction Modes (IM)
Feedback from events was useful to identify and tune IMs
Examples different context during a congress
a presentation, a question round or a panel discussion
A different Interaction Mode is assigned for each one
The target activities have been
Congresses (program driven events)
More informal meetings
Classrooms
But there are other
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 9

10. Defining Isabel services (Step 2)
Define for each Interaction Mode
Context and Interaction Model
Context definition:
Unique visual configuration
Interaction Model definition
Identification of existing roles
Chair, speaker, attendee
Identification of interaction events
Hand raising, turn giving, time signalling, …
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 10

11. Defining Isabel services (Step 3)
Implementation context and model in Isabel
The context is introduced with a control protocol
Configures all Isabel terminals with the same visual layout
The Model has two floor control levels
Level 1: Interaction mode change
The panel for IM change is activated only in the control sites
Level 2: Intra IM control
Only sites with associated participation role will have
control buttons and open audio and video channels
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 11

12. Evolution of Isabel Services
Tele-conference (ABC’93-96):
Congress realisation
Script driven centralized floor
Only way to assure program delivery
Tele-meeting (Tecodis RACE Proj. 96-98):
Enterprise project meetings
Easy to use distributed floor
Tele-class (Vodafone Master 98-00):
Distributed classrooms with semi-centralized control
Control by lecturer or operator
Services have similar IMs, but
floor control models differ
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 12

13. Interactionist School
“Interactionists characterize the world in terms of
sequences of fleeting actions where each is seen
as a response to what came before and as a
stimulus to what comes afterwards”*
* H. Sacks, 1995, Lectures in Conversation, Cambridge Mass.
* D. Gibson, 2005, Taking Turns and Talking Ties: Networks and Conversational
Interaction, AJS Volume 110 Number 6 (may 2005): 1561-97.
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 13

14. Social Protocol Definition
“Action (event, signal, message, ..) driven
human interaction and context awareness
rules to support effective group work or
behaviour”
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 14

15. The model
Social protocols can be modeled with:
Context dependent event driven models
Context dependent EFSMs (Extended Finite State Machines)
The context is signaled to the user by some side message
Usually of visual nature, but not only
Participants must feel to be in the context
The interaction is driven by human generated events or actions
Voice messages, written messages, ..
Visible actions, graphics, video, ..
Technological interactions like mouse clicks, typed messages, ..
Etc.
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 15

16. Context issues and types
What is the mininum granularity level of
Context and interaction
Is it the P-shift (participation shift) of interactionists?
Social protocols need a complex hierarchy or space of
contexts
Cultural dimension
Synchronous or asynchronous
Social, group, interpersonal, ..
Activity dimension
Interaction type
Etc.
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 16

17. Interaction Actions
Many types of interactions actions exist
Speech based interaction
Verbal messages of many kinds
Visual interaction
Based on: sign language, gestures, images, viewgraphs, ..
Written interaction
Based on: documents, editors, viewgraphs, …
…….
Mapping of human interaction into tool state change is not easy
Can include multimedia information and configurations
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 17

18. Example: Question IM EFSM Model
1) 3 actions mapped as panel clicks:
EFSM language explanation: Any.RequestTurn, Chair.GiveTurn &
Chair.ResetTurn
Any.RequestTurn (SiteX)
/ Signal (Yellow, SiteX) 2) Additional actions occur as audio visual
msg exchange: dialogue among speaker and
Means: Any site can request turn. If person asking question, but have not been
site X requests it, his name will be made explicit transitions, for simplicity.
marked yellow in requests panel.
Chair.GiveTurn (SiteX)
. / Show_Video (Position2, SiteX) Any.RequestTurn (SiteX)
Means: Only site with Chair role can Speaker / Signal (Yellow, SiteX)
select video of requesting site. If
selected 2nd video will be shown.
Chair.ResetTurn Chair.GiveTurn (SiteX)
/ Hide_Video (Position2) / Show_Video (Position2, SiteX)
Chair.GiveTurn (SiteX) Speaker Any.RequestTurn (SiteX)
/ Show_Video (Position2, SiteX) & / Signal (Yellow, SiteX)
Question
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 18

19. Asynchronous Interaction
Asynchronous interaction uses frequently
The conversational protocol
Spoken conversations
Writing letters
Sending emails
Blog posting
The basic interaction pattern of the conversational protocol is:
Send message to person or group
Then wait for answers or new messages
It seems that the protocol is reused over new technologies
Written language, clay, papyrus, paper or even spoken language
Were also new technologies at some point of time
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 19

20. Collaborative Web tool design
Folder based project repositories
Based on rational order (not on a social protocol)
We interact with the filing system not with persons
Conversational protocol based project repositories
Participants just post contributions to the repository
As if they where posting to a blog
Participants engage in conversations with other persons
Regarding to the posts made by other members
Group activity is easier to follow
It is based on human interactions
For example, a post by Barbara is answered by Andrew
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 20

21. Wikis
Wikis are based also on social interaction
Basic operation:
file change by member of group
It is an explicit human action we perceive as such
It is not just a change of the file
Interaction occurs with members of the group
Wikis have also complex community management
Wikipedia community management
Has very complex structure and interrelations behind
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 21

22. Conclusions
Social protocols explicit person to person interaction
Which map into our mental models of group interaction
In order to design human interaction aware applications
Goal: Make users feel that there is somebody at the other side
Social protocol based tool design methodology
User perceived tool state changes should be associated only with
human interactions
Technology is only a means to interact with others
Tool events must make persons behind explicit
Identifying clearly the author(s) and relevant attributes
Context changes must be made explicit with a side message
Always use human oriented presentation formats
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 22

23. Further work
Taxonomy of main collaborative social protocols
For technology mediated interactions
For example
How many conversational protocols exist?
Are similar protocols behind spoken conversations, letter writing, email, ..?
What are the various types of turn management protocols?
Is workflow automation based on social protocols?
Is it a rationale procedure which needs a social reformulation?
Formal models of social protocols should be developed
With the same role as computer protocol models
They helped in understanding them and developing implementations
Prof. Juan Quemada Wetice 2008, 23rd June 2008, Rome 23

24. Thanks
Questions?